Columns

Storyville: The DOs and DONTs of Running a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

March 10th, 2016

So you’ve probably heard about the Kickstarter I ran this past February, raising over $55,000 to launch a new online magazine of neo-noir, speculative fiction with a literary bent—Gamut. Here are some of the lessons I learned during this rollercoaster of a month. DO care about what you’re doing. It has to matter to you. A lot.

Read Column →

A Rose By Any Other Name: 5 Episodes of Literary Mistaken Identity

March 9th, 2016

Sometimes authors willingly choose to direct readers away from their true identities. It might be a bid for intrigue, or a means to hide from unwanted scrutiny and prejudice such as in the case of the Brontë sisters. Occasionally, however, issues of authorship and identity are more complex or decidedly less purposeful.

Read Column →

Writing through PTSD: A Personal Account

March 9th, 2016

I never feel safe. This is the center of my PTSD—the axis point at which the rest of the disease revolves around. I call it a disease because that’s what it is: a malignant tumor that spreads across my life, leaving nothing and no one untouched.

Read Column →

Ten Tips on How to Pitch Your Book to Review Bloggers and Not Get Ignored

March 8th, 2016

You’ve done all of the hard work, toiling away at your laptop crafting the perfect story, and then putting in the painstaking hours of editing. You even have a professional cover and some pretty kickass back cover copy. So, you’ve got the completed book, and now you want the visibility.

Read Column →

What Works & What Doesn't: 'Citizen Kane'

March 7th, 2016

Welcome once again to What Works & What Doesn't, whereby we look at the craft of screenwriting by examining elements from classic films and determining whether they're effective or not. 

Read Column →

HAPPY GRAMMAR DAY: 10 Facts About Grammar You Can Use to Annoy Your Loved Ones

March 4th, 2016

If you were me, you’d celebrate Grammar Day every day. But on this special day, let’s dig up some extra special details about grammar and language that make a Word Nerd's day!

Read Column →

On "The Witch," Great Cinematic Writing and The Tenets of Horror

March 4th, 2016

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Read Column →

14 Things That Prove Tyra Banks' 'Modelland' Is The Craziest Book Ever

March 3rd, 2016

Where to begin? That’s the real challenge here. Let’s re-state, just in case: Tyra Banks’ Modelland is the most batshit crazy thing I’ve ever read in my life.

Read Column →

LitReactor Community Spotlight: March 2016

March 3rd, 2016

Hello darlings. Per my New Year's resolution, I've been writing much more this year than usual. It's exciting. I think words, I move my fingers, and they end up on a page. It doesn't work with anything else, though. Moving my fingers has never produced a kitten, for instance. But words are okay too.

Read Column →

‘The Manchurian Candidate’ and the 2016 Presidential Election

March 3rd, 2016

Richard Condon’s Cold War thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, is a great read. No, I take that back. It’s a superb read. It’s got everything I want in a political novel: a dirtbag politician, his manipulative bitch of a wife, a sinister threat to Our Way of Life (which Condon paints as rotten to the core), brainwashing, and, as a kind of running gag, a fairly unsympathetic protagonist who eventually fucks his mother.

Read Column →